Letter to the Editor: Do We Really Need Weekend Mail Service?

As one more San Jose family that has been receiving mail at 7pm or later most days, I curiously read how this was the result of a cost cutting initiative.

I have a really simple cost cutting program: residential customers don't need delivery six days per week ... we just don’t.

My life will not be impacted negatively by receiving my AMX bill or Mike Bloomberg mailer one day later. Really. Let’s try three or four days per week and see how that impacts your costs.

Richard Ajluni
San Jose

8 Comments

  1. interesting, because I think we should go exactly the other way around. I support delivery 7 days week. Post Office jobs were once sought after jobs. During the Reagan years the attacks started. Then the right-wing pro-private business congress put requirements on the Post Office that exist on no other business or governmental agency. We need to reverse that. The Post Office need not be just for mail. It can, and should, be an outpost in rural communities of the federal government. It can be a great place to work. Why would anyone want non-union Fed-Ex to deliver our mail?

      • Entirely agree with you, Jen. New Zealand opened up a financial services arm through its Post several years ago, and it’s no different than using any other bank (except you won’t find the banksters fingers in your account looking for loose nickels and dimes).
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwibank

        My take is that the USPS should also get into the business of providing digital certificates for use in your email and signing files. They would be the ultimate top level root cert. And speaking of, why shouldn’t they also provide email services? Pure, no-peek, encrypted email for all citizens available via webmail or your favorite POP or IMAP client. It would essentially be the same as gmail, but without all the creep privacy stealing “features” that come with Alphabet’s offering.

        Oh, and to the original poster’s point, I like daily, 6-day-a-week delivery. It’s something consistent that we can, or should be able to, count on.

    • USPS has been one of the worst places to work in the US Government. Ranks right under the IRS. Bad management, stressed workers. Hence where we get the term “Going postal”

      Postal service has had its ups and downs over the years. At the start of the dot com boom people shifted to email, but now with the eCommerce boom the USPS has delivered more packages than ever in its entire history. There is no reason a branch of government with this much business can’t do a 7 day a week.

      The business the USPS can’t handle goes to FedEx, UPS, and an army of gig workers.

  2. I think you’re onto something, Richard. In fact, if the USPS only delivered the massive amount of weekly fundraising letters and junk mail every other day, I would be perfectly satisfied. My idea was to have the USPS cut the routes into M/W/F and Tu/Th/Sat, then you could have universal every-other-day delivery. It would cut down on postal vehicle expenses, reduce pollution from postal vehicles, and lower personnel expenses.

    • I love the idea of every other day delivery! Great idea. I would feel relieved every other day. It could be marketed as a type of anti-anxiety measure too. :)

      If only I would get new emails every other day!

  3. > My life will not be impacted negatively by receiving my AMX bill or Mike Bloomberg mailer one day later.

    Richard Aljuni may be a warm wonderful human being. And the services offer by USPS my not perfectly match his lifestyle.

    But the business of the Postal Service is to ensure mail service for residents of the United States. It’s in the Constitution

    Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress “To establish Post Offices and Post Roads”..

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause

    I admire Aljuni’s Libertarian instincts for speaking out against government doing too much, but postal service IS one of those things that the founders of our nation thought important and judged to be a legitimate role of government.

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